Attrition in BPOs

Attrition in BPO Industry

There may be several reasons for employees quitting an organization – poor use of employee skills and abilities, uninspiring top leadership, lack of direction, no advancement opportunities, lack of opportunity to learn new skills, poor relationship with immediate superior, lower compensation, poor role clarity, lack of attention to training, etc.

While most BPOs may have some of these issues leading to attrition, add to it the industry specific work related challenges – work timings that turns the human body clock a neat 180 degrees, a routine but sometimes stressful job (of having to handle irate customers), a cultural mind-set that finds no esteem in night working, English communication skill requirements that today can be found only among those from premier schools / colleges – and the high attrition levels don’t really come as a surprise.

It is not availability of people, but the issue of employability that is really the crux of the attrition problem. The standard of spoken English skills sought by the voice BPOs, can today be found mostly in those educated in premier schools and colleges. These graduates are the typical high ambition / high aspiration profiles, who look at the BPO jobs as a stop gap convenience, before moving on to other opportunities.

Experience shows that of those who explore the option of a job in a BPO, only the top 3% – 4% are employable.

Thus, we have a situation where the desired profile for a BPO job is looking at it as a stop gap arrangement and is keen to move out at the earliest opportunity. And whatever talent is left, the industry players are falling over themselves trying to poach from each other through various inducements.

As can be seen, this is a typical demand-supply situation which will reach equilibrium only if the supply situation sees a dramatic improvement or god forbid, the demand situation reverses.

A lasting solution could lie in revamping the English language syllabus in schools and colleges to focus on English as a communication language rather than as a language of study. Priority should also be on creating a sufficiently large pool of trained teachers who can impart this skill across the length and breadth of our academic system.

The above will be meaningful if it can manage to churn out around 15% – 20% employable talent, up from the current level of 3% – 4%.

This certainly is not going to happen overnight and we are left to face the situation of high attrition levels for a few more years to come. And with more business flowing in and global brands setting up shop in the country, the attrition situation may actually worsen.

Another possibility, albeit a sub-optimal one is where the Off shoring client and the BPO service provider convince the end customer, that it serves everyone’s purpose to focus attention on the ability to provide effective and speedy service / problem resolution rather than on accent. This can marginally improve the supply situation by allowing those who speak reasonable English but have grammar issues or sound regional, to be employed in the industry.

To conclude, there is no magic solution in sight for the attrition problem in the BPO industry. As things stand, we need to accept the situation and work around it. That’s not to say that we can afford to ignore the other workplace dissatisfaction issues that plague organizations, in general. With talent acquisition being so critical for business success, the BPO industry cannot afford to take these issues lightly.

The new workforce

The Talent Crisis

 

People are the key competitive differentiator in today’s knowledge based business. Companies today require a better educated talent pool and the pool is getting very shallow.

 

With competitors willing to attract talent with whatever it takes a key challenge for companies is to retain its precious talent. High attrition levels pushes up the cost of rehiring and results in loss of organizational knowledge and skill, impacting on the companies’ ability to compete in the market.

 

Therefore, for organizations, managing the talent crisis is becoming a strategic focus. The following are some factors that may lend themselves to better talent attraction & retention:

 

Work – life balance: With working couples becoming the norm, employees tend to prefer jobs that provide them a reasonable amount of time with the family. Flexible work practices such as part-time working, working from home, etc. would be factors that an employee may look for in a workplace. Therefore organizations need to work towards building work structures that can create this opportunities and support a healthy work-life balance.

 

Workplace quality & work relationships: A workplace should be focused, friendly and fun. While better compensation may be a good way to attract talent, workplace quality can be a key differentiator for talent retention.

 

Also, a workplace needs to provide employees dignity and respect. The supervisor needs to be responsive to employees’ personal concerns and treat them as capable individuals. Employees need to be provided with information that will enable them to execute their jobs effectively and have opportunities for open exchange of communication. The supervisor needs to be someone whom the employees can look up to, and who will take their concerns and ideas seriously.

 

Growth opportunities: Fairness and recognition is something that employees look forward to in a workplace. Fairness would mean avoiding favoritism, having equal access to growth opportunities, assigning tasks and schedules equitably, and being recognized for good performance. Fairness also means not tolerating low performance.

 

People also value opportunities to learn new skills. Often, employees’ intent to stay with or leave an organization depends on their perception of growth opportunities in the organization.

 

Sense of purpose. For an employee, pride may be in simply knowing that they are performing to the best of their abilities and that they are making a difference. Pride also comes from knowing that they are constantly learning new skills.

 

Pay & job security: Employees work to ‘earn some money’ and buy the common luxuries of life.

 

Job security is of critical importance for creating a good work atmosphere. Companies should be intentional about creating and communicating a strong sense of stability to employees as it is a key factor of employee motivation and engagement.

 

Job change: With opportunities galore, today’s employees look forward to job changes that meet their earning or growth expectations. Organizational loyalty tends to be identified with ‘high performance’ and not ‘tenure’.

 

While the above are some factors that may significantly impact workforce attraction and retention, we need to keep in mind some differences that may come into play with factors such as gender and seniority.

 

For instance some women may be content with doing an ‘acceptable’ job at the workplace and give priority to their domestic / social responsibilities. Women may also place greater importance on working for an organization that provides flexi-time and good time-off benefits. One of the key dilemmas for most women is to balance family and work life. Most would require an organization that provides them the freedom to redesign their careers that balance these two areas well.

 

Elder employees may give importance to spending time with the family. The younger ones may place importance on pay, career advancement and growth opportunities.

Psychometrics

Today, companies are increasingly relying on psychometric tests to support their decisions on staffing, promotions, OD initiatives, etc. So I guess it would be in order to share some information on this much talked about but less understood subject. The article will be structured in two parts.

What is Psychometrics ?

Psychometrics is the technique of generating psychological profiles of individuals covering either personality and / or intellectual ability.

Psychometric Tests are designed to provide a consistent and effective measure of people’s traits, abilities, skills, and interests.

Different types of psychometric tests

The following are the principle types of psychometric tests used in employment settings:

• Ability testing

Ability Tests are also sometimes referred to as ‘tests of maximum performance’. Such tests ask a person to do his or her best on a task and their performance is judged in terms of how well they have done. Ability assessed in employment settings include – verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, abstract reasoning, clerical aptitude, mechanical aptitude, spatial reasoning, etc.

• Personality Testing

Purpose of the personality tests is to assess the person’s typical way of behaving, thinking, feeling or perceiving in particular situations.

These tests provide a pattern of what is called the ‘personality profile’ which is used as the basis for making interpretations about how the person is likely to behave in different circumstances.

Considerable skill and judgment is necessary to interpret the results of the personality tests, as this is the point at which ‘science’ ends and the judgment begins.

• Tests of Motivation and Interest

Motivation questionnaires attempt to assess what types of motivation are most significant to an individual (e.g. achievement, security, affiliation with others and so on).

Interest questionnaires attempt to assess the extent to which a person shows interests in particular work ‘theme’ or ‘area’ (for example, working outdoors, creative work, working with people).

In conjunction with ability tests these tests can be used to offer guidance to individuals on career choice.

The History of Test Development

• Around 400 BC Hippocrates attempted to define four basic temperament types each of which could be accounted for by a predominant body fluid or humor; blood – sanguine (optimistic), black bile – melancholic (depressed), yellow bile – choleric (irritable) and phlegm – phlegmatic (listless and sluggish).

• The first attempt to scientifically measure the differences between individual mental abilities was made by Sir Francis Galton in the 19th Century.

• From the work of people like Galton a picture of the human mental domain emerged which saw general human ability as being composed of a number of specific abilities.

• The basic tenet of testing nowadays is based upon the principle of measuring human mental performance under different conditions and then making comparisons between people.

How are Tests Constructed?

• In its simplest form a test will have a set of questions or tasks to complete, these are known as ‘test items’.

• The parameters for assessing the effectiveness of a psychometric test is its ‘reliability’ i.e. how stable or consistent a measure the test is, and ‘validity’ i.e. how well it actually measures what it claims to measure. It is also important to know something about the nature of the group of people on whom the test was standardized – known as ‘normative information’.

Advantages of psychometric testing

Properly developed psychometric tests and questionnaires, when used by competent and appropriately qualified individuals, have the following advantages:

• They lead to judgments that are likely to be more valid than judgments made by other means.

• It could be argued that the information obtained from a good personality questionnaire might take several months of knowing and working with a person.

• They are likely to lead to considerable cost-benefits in the long term. Whether it is for selection of new staff or development of existing staff, the expenses involved in psychometric assessment are minimal when compared with the costs of high-turn over, under-performance or misdeployment of staff.

Disadvantages of psychometric testing

• Despite what has been said in previous section, there are numerous tests and questionnaires on the market which purport to be ‘psychometric instruments’ but which are not. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for untrained people to distinguish these from good psychometric instruments. In many cases, these tests and questionnaires have been put together by people with no background in psychometrics and they have very little actual utility and value.

• Lack of correct training is also a significant danger in the use of psychometric testing.

• Another important danger with psychometric testing is the use of personality questionnaires to try to assess a person’s ability or skill in a particular area. For example, if a person scores highly on a personality dimension called ‘Leadership’, this does not mean that he or she will actually possess a high level of leadership skill. Rather it means that the person has the basic personality characteristics that are commonly found amongst effective leaders and, with sufficient experience has the potential to become an effective leader.